View full sizeThe Associated Press, 2009"We're making good progress, but we have a lot of work remaining to be done," Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware County, said about budget negotiations.

State budget negotiators expect to end this week by reaching or nearing an agreement on a 2011-12 spending plan that will not exceed $27.3 billion.

Legislative and Gov. Tom Corbett administration staffers worked Saturday on details that will help lawmakers reach that goal.

Corbett has made it clear he will not sign a budget that calls for spending any more than the $27.3 billion he proposed, a cut of $700 million from the 2010-11 budget of $28 billion. He also will not support one that includes new taxes or tax increases.

“We are continuing to negotiate in a spirit of cooperation with the House and Senate and are making progress toward a balanced budget that does not raise taxes,” said Kevin Harley, Corbett’s news secretary.

Twenty-three House Republicans stated publicly on Friday that their spending appetite for next year is capped at that level as well. That was the spending level they supported in a budget bill the GOP-controlled House passed last month.

Sticking to that limit is necessary “to protect taxpayers from the dangers of excessive government spending” and “to further enable Pennsylvania’s economic recovery and future job creation,” the House GOP members stated in a letter to taxpayers.

Getting a budget done by the July 1 start of the next fiscal year continues to be a primary objective for all sides after eight straight years of failing to meet that deadline.

“We’re making good progress, but we have a lot of work remaining to be done,” said Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware County.

Talks between GOP legislative leaders and the administration last week moved the sides closer on the level of spending cuts that need to be made in the welfare budget. The House GOP budget called for $470 million in cuts.

The Senate also is pushing for smaller cuts to public universities and school districts than Corbett or House Republicans proposed. Discussion of an impact fee on natural gas drillers also is getting attention at the budget table.

Pileggi expects the Senate will vote on a budget bill this week. Whether it is a finalized version of the budget or just a step in the budgetary approval process depends on how talks progress, a leadership source said.

Senate Republicans are pushing for removing a portion of funds from a multistate tobacco settlement that Corbett included in his budget proposal. These funds would go to pay for certain health-related programs.

Senate Republicans then would use some of the state’s $540 million surplus to backfill the hole that would create to restore budget cuts but still keep the spending level at or below $27.3 billion.

Whether that satisfies the 23 House Republicans, including several from the midstate, who don’t want to see spending go higher than $27.3 billion remains to be seen.

Their votes could be critical to ensuring the House Republicans have the 102 votes needed to pass a budget out of that chamber, where the GOP hold a 112-91 seat majority.

“I know that there are some members in both chambers that would like to spend less than the governor proposed, and some would like to spend more than the governor proposed,” Pileggi said. “We’re going through a process to find out the right combination that gets us to 102 votes in the House, 26 in the Senate and the governor’s signature."

Rep. Scott Perry, R-Dillsburg, who signed the letter, said he could go along with the funding scheme the Senate Republicans are proposing, depending on how the surplus dollars plugged into the budget are used.

He could support more funding for hospitals but suggested school districts and some of the public universities should be able to get by next year with the funding restorations made in the House Republican budget.

Meanwhile, Democrats in the House and Senate are growing testy at their exclusion from the budget-making process. Their caucus leaders have not been part of any budget talks to date.

At a Thursday news conference, House Democratic Leader Frank Dermody, D-Allegheny, said, “For this current regime to be so closed doors, so closed mouth, close door, rumor mills, behind the scenes, I think is just very hypocritical. They ramped up the whole open government idea ... and now they’re turning their back on that particular idea.”

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